Update: Expert Calls Into Question WWE Losses Report

Published: Jan 13, 2023 by Dave Adamson | Last Updated: Jan 13, 2023 by Dave Adamson

Dave has been a website writer for WrestleTalk since October 2022, having previously written for Den of Geek, among a number of wrestling, movie and television-related sites. Dave has been around the independent wrestling scene for more than a decade, including behind-the-scenes.

Update: Expert Calls Into Question WWE Losses Report

Brandon Thurston of Wrestlenomics has called into doubt the recent coverage of the Morgan Stanley report for FOX in relation to SmackDown.

In a Tweet in response to the Wrestling Observer Newsletter report that Morgan Stanley’s analysis couldn’t justify the cost of SmackDown to FOX television, Thurston replied saying:

“We talked about this on Wrestlenomics Radio more than a month ago when the analysis was published.

“This is a distortion of what Morgan Stanley wrote.

“Live sports are a loss leader, so is Smackdown, so is Raw, so is Dynamite.”

Referring to the Wrestlenomics YouTube video in question, Thurston had said the following:

“Morgan Stanley, in their report this past week, did some very interesting research along these lines.

“They’re assuming the base case for WWE’s TV rights deal in the US is 1.5x.

“The current value, the current average annual value, for Raw and SmackDown combined is $470m per year.

“If Morgan Stanley is correct and they get a get a 1.5x increase, let’s say for both deals, they end up at $705m per year.

“Morgan Stanley has laid out bear cases. They have also laid out a bull case.

“The bear case is 1.35 x where they end up with only $635m a year.

“A bull case where they double their TV rights and end up at nearly a billion dollars a year just in US live rights: $940m.

“So notice their bare care is not even an even, not even a no-raise, not even a 1.0x case.

“Their sort of pessimistic case is still a 35% raise.”

If you use this transcription or any portion of it please credit WrestleTalk.com and link to this page.

Co-host Jesse Collings stated that:

“An epic part of their analysis is the argument that the expected next television contract is already baked into the stock price in their opinion.

“That the over $80 per share price is because people are expecting somewhere between let’s just say 1.35 and 2.00 x the current deal.”

If you use this transcription or any portion of it please credit WrestleTalk.com and link to this page.

Thurston would explain that:

“They write in the report that they see the consensus

“In essence, they’re saying the consensus of stock analysts believe, I think at this point 1.7x or something like that.

“So, their base case is a little bit lower than what they view the consensus as.”

If you use this transcription or any portion of it please credit WrestleTalk.com and link to this page.

With WWE’s television contracts due to expire at the end of 2024, negotiations for a new deal are likely to begin around April of 2023.

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